Music videos took all the fun out of new music. That visual you would form in your mind of the characters in the song, their longing, their plight, the imagined resolution, was all taken away by the video interpretation of the song.

With music videos, we were shown what the characters looked like, the imaginative imagery gone.

One of the great pleasures of working though the pile of LiveWire Award nominees is getting to hear new music without having the video play along with the song. It is the imagination that helps leak out and then soak in the aesthetic beauty.

Music videos took all the fun out of new music. That visual you would form in your mind of the characters in the song, their longing, their plight, the imagined resolution, was all taken away by the video interpretation of the song.

With music videos, we were shown what the characters looked like, the imaginative imagery gone.

One of the great pleasures of working though the pile of LiveWire Award nominees is getting to hear new music without having the video play along with the song. It is the imagination that helps leak out and then soak in the aesthetic beauty.

That is especially true when listening to the work of Matt Cullen who earns a LiveWire Award with his solo debut "The Humming Field." Brilliant only begins to describe the depth of this work which rambles gracefully across 12 tracks that are unobtrusively rooted in Cullen's signature guitar work.

The disc seems the perfect marriage of American and other-side of-the-pond influences. More information is available at thehummingfield.com

The Lonesome Brothers contribute "The Last CD" and we certainly hope the title is just a name and not a statement of fact. The seventh in the Lonesome Brothers catalog, "The Last CD" proves a refuge for fans of what had once been called alt.country-now Americana. But the group, with legends Jim Armenti and Ray Mason backed by another legend in drummer Tom Shea (Scud Mountain Boys) defies categorization more than most. With the Lonesome Brothers, its just good music. Find them at thelonesomebrothers.com

It was a demo EP version of the songs on "No Sympathy" that first pegged Ciderhouse as the leader in the clubhouse for this year's LiveWire Awards.
That rough cut was alarmingly impactful and the full, 12-song release delivers as well. This is a band that should have been signed a dozen years ago when it was known as Electric Blue and the Kosmik Truth. The band, which features the region's best rock singer in Callie K., continues to apply a Southern jam-rock sensibility to their Northeast working class blues. Available through myspace.com/ciderhousemusic.

Seth Glier checks in with "The Trouble With People," and the singer-songwriter / pianist earns kudos for his songwriting here. Glier turns more than a phrase or two over the course of the 12-song release that indicate the lyricist is fully engaged with his Muse. The songs are wonderfully conceived and slickly (but not too...) produced. Glier can be found online at sethglier.com

Sam Plotkin joins Glier on this year's list of young guns. Another singer-songwriter with a musical and lyrical vision that belies his age (he is 16), Plotkin's "Underground" follows the award-winning "Give Me A Sign" released in 2007. Already a player on the local scene (Plotkin held his release party at the famed Iron Horse), the gifted vocalist is networking in Nashville to expand his reach on a national scale. His work has attracted the attention of noted producer Cliff Downs who has collaborated on the last two recordings. More information is available at samplotkin.com

Closing out our "best of" for 2008 is the reappearance of the Screaming Souls on the rock scene. Led by Barry Kingston, and inspired by the lyrics of his brother and bass player Chris Kingston, the band's "Screaming Souls IV" is a powerful and compelling work. In their first true collaboration since the days of The Breakdown, the Kingston brothers have scored a huge success. Clips of the songs can be heard on screamingsoulsnow.com

LINER NOTES

Tickets to see comedian / TV star ("Everybody Loves Raymond") Brad Garret at the Grand Theater at MGM Grand in Foxwoods go on sale tomorrow at mgmatfoxwoods.com. The show is scheduled for April 19.

Tickets go on sale Feb. 6 through that same website for an appearance by Chicago on April 18. Those tickets are priced between $60 and $70.

Tickets for the Fall Out Boy "Never Say Die Part Deux" tour at Mohegan Sun are on sale now through all Ticketmaster outlets and locations including ticketmaster.com and by phone at (413) 733-2500. Tickets are priced at $31 for the five-band extravaganza that comes to the Connecticut casino on April 29.

Also on the bill are Cobra Starship, Hey Monday, All Time Low, and Metro Station. The tour will also come to Tsongas Arena on April 28. Those tickets go on sale Saturday through Ticketmaster.